Review: Sebatron VMP-2000EVU

I’ve always been keen to use a Sebatron preamp, but somehow the opportunity has never presented itself. I have several friends who own them and regard these Australian preamps most highly, but strangely, most of these friends are in the US, where Sebatron enjoys a reputation for high-quality valve processors at a competitive price. Here in Australia, the company sells units largely by word-of-mouth, but the lack of vigorous advertising means the brand is far less well known than its more famous foreign competitors.

After finally getting my hands on one I can happily report the Sebatron VMP2000eVU exceeded my expectations and represents excellent value for money, particularly within Australia. Refreshingly bereft of gimmicky bells and whistles, this two-channel preamp combines the right features to deliver years of reliable, quality audio: good parts selection, good build quality and a design which is as close to plain wire as you can get for less than $2000.

The housing is ivory powder-coated steel that offers the ergonomic appeal of a 2U box with very few controls, making everything easy to reach and easy to read. Each channel includes a transformer-balanced microphone input plus a DI input, individual phantom power with LED, passive shelving EQ filters, a 12AT7 vacuum tube gain stage, a switchable three-setting pad, a phase switch, a nice VU meter and a solid-state, discrete Class A output stage. Opening the box reveals a sturdy fibreglass circuit board and a satisfying dearth of chips and surface-mount devices. I was pleased to see XLR in/out connectors are soft wired to the board via a connector instead of using direct PCB-mounted XLR connectors. It seems like the VMP2000eVU is more ‘hand assembled’ than ‘hand crafted’ (as per the sales pitch) but the assembly is fastidious for a unit in the sub-$2000 price category.

The 12AT7 valves at the heart of these preamps are almost as ubiquitous as the 12AX7 but offer slightly less gain and arguably better audio (the 12A family was originally made for televisions). Surprisingly, they don’t appear to be shielded, which seems unusual given the (admittedly fairly slim) chance of hum from stray magnetic fields via the ‘E’ core mains transformer. That said, I didn’t notice any significant hum during testing. No doubt a smart cost saving was the decision to use a discrete solid-state output stage rather than a transformer-based output, as the discrete output will outperform any op-amp-based output (particularly over longer distances).

Switching on the VMP2000eVU reveals a nice greenish glow from the VU meters – surely worth the extra $400 over the non-VU version! After giving the valves a good warm-up, the first thing I tried was electric bass. Wow! This preamp makes a great bass DI. The valves impart a ‘big’ character, with plenty of colour, which remains pleasingly clean until driven quite hard (when typical valve distortion kicks in). Although I didn’t have a drumkit handy, I could see this box being great for kick, snare and toms, particularly given the nice preset shelving switches. Gentle detents on the output level knobs allow easy channel matching for stereo recording.

I also used the Sebatron to record male and female vocals through a variety of FET and tube condensers plus some quality ribbon mics. Again, the VMP2000eVU remained quite transparent until it was driven hard, providing flattering vocal amplification and a warm character without being overly thickened by harmonic distortion. The four preset shelving filters come in very handy with vocals, allowing choice between Flat/Deep/Low Cut and Flat/Bright/Air (providing a total of nine different combinations). The ‘Deep’ boost and low-cut filters kick in below around 120Hz, ‘Bright’ appears to boost at 6 – 8kHz, while ‘Air’ emphasises ultra-high frequencies up to (and apparently beyond) the limit of human hearing. I found the ‘Air’ setting to be particularly interesting on female vocals and I applaud Sebatron for providing these simple EQ options with the preamps – they provide useful, practical tonal adjustment options without injuriously affecting the signal in the manner of a graphic or parametric EQ.

One thing the Sebatron doesn’t have in excess, however, is gain. Even with the boost filters enabled, the VMP2000eVU struggles somewhat to provide enough input gain for ribbons when recording moderate level sources such as vocals, acoustic guitar and violin. Although the unit has a neat option enabling the chaining of both channels in series, this gets a bit noisy – the setup is better suited to capturing sounds requiring high gain/high distortion settings. That said, ribbon microphones work really well with this preamp on more typical ribbon sources, such as horn sections and loud guitar amps.

The VMP2000eVU is a very flexible preamp, designed to maintain optimal audio quality, while simultaneously keeping its feet firmly planted on the ground. The extra EQ features of the Sebatron show a good understanding of the practical, everyday needs of engineers; it’s made in Australia and constitutes a very worthy investment.